No, what's really dumb is forwarding executable attachments to yourself. WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT?
Suppose maybe you want to email yourself an executable (from home to work), or you want your friend to send you an executable file.
Or suppose you know the executable is good. (You specifically requested it from someone) You can't even mail it to an account which you don't access through outlook to retrieve it.
Of course you can rename the file, but this is an irritating in itself, especially if you forget. Round-trip time between home and work (or whatever) can be a day if it's not convenient to go home at lunch...
Agreed - it's not that bad. You'd have to deliberately run a binary executable to get infected. Which also means Netscape + all others on windoze can be afflicated.
But, technically, you can't *get* this virus on M$ Outlook, if you're reasonably up to date on patches. Outlook "protects" users from viruses by simply disallowing you to look at *.exe attachments. You can't even forward them to yourself through Outlook. Dumbest solution I've ever heard of.
Doofus question:
I tried to compile the code they gave out. They seem to use an assembler called "ml" which I've never heard of. Can someone please point me in the right direction?
But now, I have something a little more "proffessional". The idea is to have your root and user prompts look really different, and have the path in the title bar. Also, high legibility when backscrolling.
The extra stuff is to show your shell depth. (How many subshells you have) This is mostly to make figuring out which terms have screen running on them.
# The Standard prompt (blue for users, green for root)
if [ $HOME = '/root' -o/$USER = '/root/' ]
then
PS1='\[\033[34;42m\]\u@\h[\!]\[\033[00;31;42m\]\$\ [\033[m\] '
else
PS1='\[\033[34;46m\]\u@\h[\!]\$\[\033[m\] '
fi
PS2="++>"
# Prepend a shell level "sticker" to indicate a screen session/subshell
# (Less to compensate 1 for X-window local connections)
MY_SHELL_DEPTH=`expr $SHELL_DEPTH - 1`
if [ $MY_SHELL_DEPTH -gt 0 ]
then
PS1='\[\033[31;46m\]'${MY_SHELL_DEPTH}'>'${PS1}
fi
It's widely suspected that Microsoft uses secret API calls and undocumented functions...
I used to work at Microsoft as a developer. This is just a widely circulated rumour. We used MSDN as our dev reference, just like everyone else. Think about it. Microsoft employs ~10000 developers. It's probably a good bet that at least one of them is disgruntled.
Raaaahh!!!! Sometimes you read things and it just makes you angry. I read my comments filtered +3, but this really takes the cake. Troll anyone?
The point is NOT to make a picture that captures Van Gogh's brilliance. It is to create a _computer_program_ that identifies the _essential_ elements of a visual transformation. (ie. learns a photoshop filter)
And from a SINGLE picture mind you.
This technology is _really_ something. Think about how you'd write "a photoshop filter that makes a picture look like a Van Gogh". (I used to work at Corel, in Photo-paint, in the BitmapFX group, so I know something about this:) We'd literally work for weeks to come up with something like that. Just THINK about that. You've taught a computer "write programs" that a computer programmer would take weeks to write.
I've always wondered why on earth all these laptop manufacturers seem to INSIST that those two Windoze keys on your keyboard are such a necessity.
Even on less than full-sized keyboards on ultra-portable mini-notebooks they insist that these keys serve some useful function. Only IBM's notebooks get it right - no windows keys!
But the long answer is maybe, but for all intents and purposes, it's not feasible.
Check out the white papers on ClearType filtering. (Some nice pictures/samples, too) It's so simple, you'll think, "Why didn't I think of that?"
The real tragedy in this is that we didn't think of this before M$. So, being covered by M$ pattents, it'll probably never make it into any standard distro of X.:(
To do sub-pixel (cleartype) rendering, you need some way of addressing the subpixels in your monitor. LCD panels have a nice, well-defined "sub-pixel RGB" location. This is not really true in CRTs using Trinitron or Invar Shadow mask technology. (Almost every single monitor you'll use) Try taking a magnifying glass to your monitor, and look at the "RGB" dots. They're not really well-defined, like an LCD is.
Sony has some special technology for their monitors that uses an Octahedral "sub-pixel". You *might* be able to get some sort of sub-pixel rendering going on that, but it would be far more complex than an LCD panel, and probably be yield less pleasant results. But, having never examined a Sony monitor to that degree, I can't tell you if it's possible or not.
--
.. At least under Canadian law. I think the US has a similar law.
Anything that involves "blood sweat and tears" can be copyrighted.
Of course, if you independently produce your own phone book, that's okay.
Long sample story:
There's a "phone book" of lawyers in Canada. I forget the names and such. The meat of the story is that 2 partners produced the "lawyer phone book". Partner A sells his 50% interest in the business to partner B. Later on, he produces an identical phone book (complete with identical errors) and sells it.
Partner B sues partner A for copyright violation. Partern A argues that you can't copyright a listing. Partner B wins the lawsuit, because assembling all those names required "substantial effort". --
Somehow, this kinda stuff reminds me of the rice boy attitude. You know those Hong-Kong kids who soup up their Civic CXs with Mugen stickers, and racing stripes?:)
'Cuz we all know that clear/glowing cases, and mugen stickers make it go faster!
I used to work at Pumatech. (Actually, I worked in the wireless web-browsing end of things, as an engineeer)
Anyways, we were checking our emails one day (this was about 6 months ago) and there's some big "congratulations" email - we got another pattent!
A large portion of the company is based out of synchronization software. (Synchronize your PIM, Laptop, whatever) We'd just received a patent on a revolutionary new technique - time based syncing! Sync data, based on their TIME STAMPS!
You know, this article made me angry out about courts and lawyers in several places. I could rant forever about the ridiculousness of this situation, so I'll focus on one point that particularly irritates me: "coders can't pass the buck."
Let's be realistic. It's not the coders that are passing the buck. It's easy to blame the coder. Single point of failure. In this case, if it were feasable to convict the million or so users that use Napster to illegally pirate copyrighted music, we would do so, in a pinch. But, fact of the matter is, our legal system is not a suitable mechanism to convict a million users. So, let's set this straight. The legal system isn't set up properly to deal with this situation. The courts are passing the buck to the programmer. Agreed?
If mememory serves correctly, I believe that nVidia has very strong ties with GL. SGI was the one who came up with GL to describe a nice API into their graphics subsystems. nVidia was a company spun from a whole lot of SGI engineers. Grain of salt, please - My memory ain't what it used to be:)
When I used to live in SF, I had all these things you're talking about. Omnisky Minstrel 3 modem, with GoAmerica coverage, Top Gun Postman for email (Set up a new POP account to mirror my email), and ProxiWeb as my web browser.
Postman and ProxiWeb are free (as in beer).
Stock quotes/Weather/traffic/movie showtimes all provided by my.yahoo.com. Driving directions by Mapquest (they have palm pilot version of their page, although I forget the URL)
The first two aren't web browsers, they're web clipping systems. In what sense aren't they web browsers? You attach a modem to them, you can surf the web. I regularly read Slashdot through a wireless modem on my palm pilot. Although I'm not sure about Avantgo, I am aware that Proxiweb handles images, encryption, form submission, cookies, and limited javascript. If you consider lynx to be a web browser, I don't believe there is any grounds to consider these soley web-clipping systems, on a purely functional sense. Of course, both of these systems require a special proxy server (free service) to reduce the complexity of html/images. Perhaps this is the limitation you are refering to?
www.point.com is not bad. They give you a quick overview of all your choices. But for more in depth, IMHO, the best (but limited) reviews can be found at www.arcx.com/sites/default.htm
These peripherals DO exist. Unfortunately, they are outrageously expensive.
MDs are cool, but they're not that well suited to using as general purpose storage devices. MD music sounds so good, because it is ATRAC compressed - an MD only holds about 150MB of information.
Other disadvantages: - Throughput/latency isn't that good, either. I think it's aproximately equivalent to a 2-spin CD drive. - The media is expensive. To store general purpose data, you need higher-quality minidiscs that cost more than 5 times what regular music MDs. ATRAC encoding can compensate for bit errors, wheareas to store general purpose data, bit-errors are not tolerable.
Do geeks guys usually go for geek girls? Most the folks I know prefer more normal women.:)
I mean, you've been slagging it away with code for 18 hours. Do you really want to come home and discuss it?
Personally, I'd prefer to come home, and have a girl who's just happy that I'm back. Not someone who really wants to know the details of why heap corruption is happening on the PPC build of whatever I'm working on.
Life just gets so one-dimensional when you're dating a geek. You're a geek at work, you're a geek at school. Do you have to be an egghead when you come home, too?:)
I think it's just nice to have someone who reminds you that code is not EVERYTHING. It's nice to have a life that has nothing to do with computers.
Alright, I'll hope I won't reveal anything my NDA covers...:)
This is the first time I've ever watched one of ESR's talks. Pretty interesting, he's pretty quick on his feet, so to speak.
I don't really have anything to say, but someone out there might want to know my impressions.
Some observations: -He's right, there were some "conflicting views". It was kinda funny watching the 2 sides assert their OS was better. I love Linux as much as the next guy, and I think that both OSs have their relative merits. -ESR's talk gave you a little something to think about, but a lot of his arguments weren't backed up. I think that if they were, it would've lent more weight to his ideas. (Maybe there wasn't enough time to present them, or maybe there simply weren't good examples behind some of his points) eg. One of his examples was DOOM. Mentioned how they benifited from open-source. Did not say what exactly was the benifit. (To my knowledge, the only thing that came out of releasing DOOM was glDOOM, which, if kinda neat, is not all that fabulous) -Microsofties are also pretty quick on their feet, and I think that ESR probably lost a few more arguments than he's used to. -IMHO, ESR's talk was not extremely convincing - I think there's a lot more money to be made by keeping "private source." -I don't think he was convincing enough to change anybody's mind. Although I haven't talked to anyone else who also saw the talk.
Ah, before I get massively flamed here, I'd just like to say that I happen to probably like open-source more than most people. (even helped a couple GPL projects) And I find it kinda disgusting that people are releasing unproffesional, unpolished nagware programs, with no real customer support, for a fee. (for instance, a lot of small win32 apps/toys, winCE, Palmpilot programs) Bottom line, corporations are formed on the premises of making money.
#include "disclaimer.h" Views are my own, not my employers, yadayadayada... Incidentally, before someone thinks I'm someone from "high and above", I'm just a MS intern. I don't really know anything about how things are run around here. Just my summer job to keep my busy:)
Slashdot Mirror
No, what's really dumb is forwarding executable attachments to yourself. WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT?
Suppose maybe you want to email yourself an executable (from home to work), or you want your friend to send you an executable file.
Or suppose you know the executable is good. (You specifically requested it from someone) You can't even mail it to an account which you don't access through outlook to retrieve it.
Of course you can rename the file, but this is an irritating in itself, especially if you forget. Round-trip time between home and work (or whatever) can be a day if it's not convenient to go home at lunch...
--
#include <malloc.h>
Haha! :) Ain't that the truth. Remember that Good Times email virus that was all the rage?
You'd laugh at whoever "warned" you about it, because it was unthinkable that an email would transmit a virus to your terminal.
But now, thanks to Microsoft Innovation(TM) it really is possible for your email to wipe out your machine. :)
--
#include <malloc.h>
Agreed - it's not that bad. You'd have to deliberately run a binary executable to get infected. Which also means Netscape + all others on windoze can be afflicated.
But, technically, you can't *get* this virus on M$ Outlook, if you're reasonably up to date on patches. Outlook "protects" users from viruses by simply disallowing you to look at *.exe attachments. You can't even forward them to yourself through Outlook. Dumbest solution I've ever heard of.
--
#include <malloc.h>
include <stdio.h>
int main() {
char ch;
if ( feof(stdin) )
return 0;
ch = fgetc( stdin );
while ( !feof(stdin) ) {
if ( ch >= 'A' && ch <= 'Z' )
putchar( (ch - 'A' + 13) % 26 + 'A' );
else if ( ch >= 'a' && ch <= 'z' )
putchar( (ch - 'a' + 13) % 26 + 'a' );
else
putchar( ch );
ch = fgetc( stdin );
}
return 0;
}
--
#include <malloc.h>
Someone in this very forum has already found the cryptographic key. :)
--
#include <malloc.h>
Doofus question:
I tried to compile the code they gave out. They seem to use an assembler called "ml" which I've never heard of. Can someone please point me in the right direction?
--
#include <malloc.h>
You know? I thought it was only select crazy idiots like me who spent hours mindlessly customizing the perfect prompt..
3 7;43m\] \u[\!]\[\033[00;31;43m\]\260\261\262\333\[\033[00; 31;40m\]\333\262\261\260\[\033[m\]'
/$USER = '/root/' ]
\ [\033[m\] '
Here's the fire-looking prompt that was so popular a coupla years ago. (requires ANSI fonts)
fp ()
{
PS1='\[\033[01;33;43m\]\333\262\261\260\[\033[01;
}
But now, I have something a little more "proffessional". The idea is to have your root and user prompts look really different, and have the path in the title bar. Also, high legibility when backscrolling.
The extra stuff is to show your shell depth. (How many subshells you have) This is mostly to make figuring out which terms have screen running on them.
SHELL_DEPTH=$(expr $SHLVL \- 0)
export SHELL_DEPTH
# The Standard prompt (blue for users, green for root)
if [ $HOME = '/root' -o
then
PS1='\[\033[34;42m\]\u@\h[\!]\[\033[00;31;42m\]\$
else
PS1='\[\033[34;46m\]\u@\h[\!]\$\[\033[m\] '
fi
PS2="++>"
# Prepend a shell level "sticker" to indicate a screen session/subshell
# (Less to compensate 1 for X-window local connections)
MY_SHELL_DEPTH=`expr $SHELL_DEPTH - 1`
if [ $MY_SHELL_DEPTH -gt 0 ]
then
PS1='\[\033[31;46m\]'${MY_SHELL_DEPTH}'>'${PS1}
fi
# PROMPT_COMMAND="echo '(wd: ' \$PWD')'"
PS1='\[\033]0;\u@\h: \w\007\]'${PS1}
--
#include <malloc.h>
It's widely suspected that Microsoft uses secret API calls and undocumented functions...
I used to work at Microsoft as a developer. This is just a widely circulated rumour. We used MSDN as our dev reference, just like everyone else. Think about it. Microsoft employs ~10000 developers. It's probably a good bet that at least one of them is disgruntled.
--
#include <malloc.h>
Raaaahh!!!! Sometimes you read things and it just makes you angry. I read my comments filtered +3, but this really takes the cake. Troll anyone?
:) We'd literally work for weeks to come up with something like that. Just THINK about that. You've taught a computer "write programs" that a computer programmer would take weeks to write.
The point is NOT to make a picture that captures Van Gogh's brilliance. It is to create a _computer_program_ that identifies the _essential_ elements of a visual transformation. (ie. learns a photoshop filter)
And from a SINGLE picture mind you.
This technology is _really_ something. Think about how you'd write "a photoshop filter that makes a picture look like a Van Gogh". (I used to work at Corel, in Photo-paint, in the BitmapFX group, so I know something about this
--
#include <malloc.h>
I think this was once featured on slashdot - The Megacar. The flash site makes it sound so cool.
150KB/s throughput, or something really up there.
--
I've always wondered why on earth all these laptop manufacturers seem to INSIST that those two Windoze keys on your keyboard are such a necessity.
Even on less than full-sized keyboards on ultra-portable mini-notebooks they insist that these keys serve some useful function. Only IBM's notebooks get it right - no windows keys!
--
But the long answer is maybe, but for all intents and purposes, it's not feasible.
:(
Check out the white papers on ClearType filtering. (Some nice pictures/samples, too) It's so simple, you'll think, "Why didn't I think of that?"
The real tragedy in this is that we didn't think of this before M$. So, being covered by M$ pattents, it'll probably never make it into any standard distro of X.
To do sub-pixel (cleartype) rendering, you need some way of addressing the subpixels in your monitor. LCD panels have a nice, well-defined "sub-pixel RGB" location. This is not really true in CRTs using Trinitron or Invar Shadow mask technology. (Almost every single monitor you'll use) Try taking a magnifying glass to your monitor, and look at the "RGB" dots. They're not really well-defined, like an LCD is.
Sony has some special technology for their monitors that uses an Octahedral "sub-pixel". You *might* be able to get some sort of sub-pixel rendering going on that, but it would be far more complex than an LCD panel, and probably be yield less pleasant results. But, having never examined a Sony monitor to that degree, I can't tell you if it's possible or not.
--
.. At least under Canadian law. I think the US has a similar law.
Anything that involves "blood sweat and tears" can be copyrighted.
Of course, if you independently produce your own phone book, that's okay.
Long sample story:
There's a "phone book" of lawyers in Canada. I forget the names and such. The meat of the story is that 2 partners produced the "lawyer phone book". Partner A sells his 50% interest in the business to partner B. Later on, he produces an identical phone book (complete with identical errors) and sells it.
Partner B sues partner A for copyright violation. Partern A argues that you can't copyright a listing. Partner B wins the lawsuit, because assembling all those names required "substantial effort".
--
Somehow, this kinda stuff reminds me of the rice boy attitude. You know those Hong-Kong kids who soup up their Civic CXs with Mugen stickers, and racing stripes? :)
'Cuz we all know that clear/glowing cases, and mugen stickers make it go faster!
--
I used to work at Pumatech. (Actually, I worked in the wireless web-browsing end of things, as an engineeer)
Anyways, we were checking our emails one day (this was about 6 months ago) and there's some big "congratulations" email - we got another pattent!
A large portion of the company is based out of synchronization software. (Synchronize your PIM, Laptop, whatever) We'd just received a patent on a revolutionary new technique - time based syncing! Sync data, based on their TIME STAMPS!
We had a good laugh.
--
You know, this article made me angry out about courts and lawyers in several places. I could rant forever about the ridiculousness of this situation, so I'll focus on one point that particularly irritates me: "coders can't pass the buck."
Let's be realistic. It's not the coders that are passing the buck. It's easy to blame the coder. Single point of failure. In this case, if it were feasable to convict the million or so users that use Napster to illegally pirate copyrighted music, we would do so, in a pinch. But, fact of the matter is, our legal system is not a suitable mechanism to convict a million users. So, let's set this straight. The legal system isn't set up properly to deal with this situation. The courts are passing the buck to the programmer. Agreed?
--
If mememory serves correctly, I believe that nVidia has very strong ties with GL. SGI was the one who came up with GL to describe a nice API into their graphics subsystems. nVidia was a company spun from a whole lot of SGI engineers. Grain of salt, please - My memory ain't what it used to be :)
--
When I used to live in SF, I had all these things you're talking about.
Omnisky Minstrel 3 modem, with GoAmerica coverage, Top Gun Postman for email (Set up a new POP account to mirror my email), and ProxiWeb as my web browser.
Postman and ProxiWeb are free (as in beer).
Stock quotes/Weather/traffic/movie showtimes all provided by my.yahoo.com. Driving directions by Mapquest (they have palm pilot version of their page, although I forget the URL)
--
The first two aren't web browsers, they're web clipping systems. In what sense aren't they web browsers? You attach a modem to them, you can surf the web. I regularly read Slashdot through a wireless modem on my palm pilot. Although I'm not sure about Avantgo, I am aware that Proxiweb handles images, encryption, form submission, cookies, and limited javascript. If you consider lynx to be a web browser, I don't believe there is any grounds to consider these soley web-clipping systems, on a purely functional sense.
Of course, both of these systems require a special proxy server (free service) to reduce the complexity of html/images. Perhaps this is the limitation you are refering to?
--
Well, there are web browsers for the palm pilot. www.proxinet.com, www.avantgo.com, and handweb(don't know the url off-hand) just to name a few.
--
www.point.com is not bad. They give you a quick overview of all your choices. But for more in depth, IMHO, the best (but limited) reviews can be found at www.arcx.com/sites/default.htm
--
These peripherals DO exist. Unfortunately, they are outrageously expensive.
MDs are cool, but they're not that well suited to using as general purpose storage devices. MD music sounds so good, because it is ATRAC compressed - an MD only holds about 150MB of information.
Other disadvantages:
- Throughput/latency isn't that good, either. I think it's aproximately equivalent to a 2-spin CD drive.
- The media is expensive. To store general purpose data, you need higher-quality minidiscs that cost more than 5 times what regular music MDs. ATRAC encoding can compensate for bit errors, wheareas to store general purpose data, bit-errors are not tolerable.
--
Ask any girl you know, at random. "If Bill Gates asked for your hand in marriage, what would you say?"
Chances are pretty good that she'd think about it for a little while.
Girls are like that. They've been trained to crave security, and money is part of that equation.
But to be completely fair, suppose someone offers you 1.0e9 dollars to marry you. I imagine it would inspire most of us to at least think about.
--
Do geeks guys usually go for geek girls? Most the folks I know prefer more normal women. :)
:)
I mean, you've been slagging it away with code for 18 hours. Do you really want to come home and discuss it?
Personally, I'd prefer to come home, and have a girl who's just happy that I'm back. Not someone who really wants to know the details of why heap corruption is happening on the PPC build of whatever I'm working on.
Life just gets so one-dimensional when you're dating a geek. You're a geek at work, you're a geek at school. Do you have to be an egghead when you come home, too?
I think it's just nice to have someone who reminds you that code is not EVERYTHING. It's nice to have a life that has nothing to do with computers.
--
Alright, I'll hope I won't reveal anything my NDA covers... :)
:)
This is the first time I've ever watched one of ESR's talks. Pretty interesting, he's pretty quick on his feet, so to speak.
I don't really have anything to say, but someone out there might want to know my impressions.
Some observations:
-He's right, there were some "conflicting views". It was kinda funny watching the 2 sides assert their OS was better. I love Linux as much as the next guy, and I think that both OSs have their relative merits.
-ESR's talk gave you a little something to think about, but a lot of his arguments weren't backed up. I think that if they were, it would've lent more weight to his ideas. (Maybe there wasn't enough time to present them, or maybe there simply weren't good examples behind some of his points)
eg. One of his examples was DOOM. Mentioned how they benifited from open-source. Did not say what exactly was the benifit. (To my knowledge, the only thing that came out of releasing DOOM was glDOOM, which, if kinda neat, is not all that fabulous)
-Microsofties are also pretty quick on their feet, and I think that ESR probably lost a few more arguments than he's used to.
-IMHO, ESR's talk was not extremely convincing - I think there's a lot more money to be made by keeping "private source."
-I don't think he was convincing enough to change anybody's mind. Although I haven't talked to anyone else who also saw the talk.
Ah, before I get massively flamed here, I'd just like to say that I happen to probably like open-source more than most people. (even helped a couple GPL projects) And I find it kinda disgusting that people are releasing unproffesional, unpolished nagware programs, with no real customer support, for a fee. (for instance, a lot of small win32 apps/toys, winCE, Palmpilot programs)
Bottom line, corporations are formed on the premises of making money.
#include "disclaimer.h"
Views are my own, not my employers, yadayadayada...
Incidentally, before someone thinks I'm someone from "high and above", I'm just a MS intern. I don't really know anything about how things are run around here. Just my summer job to keep my busy
--